iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Marshall Cunningham @marshallcunningham.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

But the Law of Zeus!!! And the Sea People!!! [I actually enjoyed it quite a bit. The sound was incredible, even if I had to cover my ears a bunch because I’m old]

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Marshall Cunningham @marshallcunningham.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

...And now I have to rework my section on Jer 37–44... which is both annoying [complementary] and very very exciting. This piece is great, @andytobo.bsky.social and really pokes at a bunch of stuff that's been bugging me as I'm working on this MS.

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Marshall Cunningham @marshallcunningham.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

I was just editing my book MS and I have a sub-heading “ ‘Exile’ as a ONE type of diaspora experience.” Now your piece is gonna derail my morning plans (in the best way).

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Lucy Moloney @lucyelm.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

I spent some time digging into names

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Marshall Cunningham @marshallcunningham.bsky.social · 09/02/2026

GIVE IT TO A KCIKER OR PUNTER YOU COWARDS!!!!

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Marshall Cunningham @marshallcunningham.bsky.social · 28/12/2025

I’ve sung “Birdhouse in your soul” to my kid at bedtime essentially every night (and nap time) for the last 6 years. Just an incredible album, back to front.

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Dr. Karen Carr @quatrus.bsky.social · 14/11/2025

You didn't get a doctorate so you could 'get your syllabus approved' and then 'not depart from it' and just 'tell the students what they need in order to work in their profession'. You're the *expert*; your job is to convey your sense of reality, and also encourage them to think for themselves.

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Denny Carter @dennycarter.bsky.social · 10/11/2025

Had to write about Angus King's declaration that "standing up to Trump didn't work" because I've never heard anything bleaker in my life. badfaithtimes.com/were-not-ask...

badfaithtimes.com

We’re Not Asking For Much, Angus

"Standing up to Donald Trump didn't work."

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Dr Selena Wisnom @lswisnom.bsky.social · 03/11/2025

Academics in Assyria in the 7th c BC complain that admin is preventing them from doing research and teaching

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mbbendt @bendts2cents.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

Pretty sure that when you have giant frogs everywhere, God is very disappointed in how you are treating immigrants.

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Katherine Weikert @kateweikert.bsky.social · 01/10/2025

We academic types like to think of our jobs as our callings, but just remember: a university is your workplace and your employer. It is not your family or your saviour. We trade our labour for pay like anyone else. Love what you *do*, but remember: institutions can't love you back. *join a union

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Joshua Alfaro @joshuaalfaro.bsky.social · 17/09/2025

Call for Papers: 2026 Midwest Regional Meeting for Biblical Studies, March 13-15, 2026 Saint Mary's College, Notre Dame, IN. Submissions due January 9, 2026 mailchi.mp/283c7c7cfe58...

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Marshall Cunningham @marshallcunningham.bsky.social · 21/08/2025

Just so long as I get to peak over your shoulder while I’m writing on Jeremiah…

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Marshall Cunningham @marshallcunningham.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

Banger. Gasped multiple times while listening. Laughed plenty, too.

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Anna Holmes @annabookwriter.bsky.social · 18/06/2025

In libraries, we call this vocational awe. The idea that if you are invested in your calling, you should accept low wages/inhumane conditions is a nasty little trick of capitalism. I’m an author, I’m hungry, I care deeply about my work, AND I deserve to be paid for it.

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 05/06/2025

very fun to read frederick douglass accurately describe the problem with the pardon power in 1867

A bad President, for
instance, has the power to do what? What can he not do? If he wanted to
revolutionize this government, he could easily do it with this ponderous
power; it would be an auxiliary power. He could cry “havoc, and let slip the
dogs of war,”29 and say to the conspirators: “I am with you. If you
succeed, all is well. If you fail, I will interpose the shield of my pardon, and
you are safe. If your property is taken away from you by Congress, I will
pardon and restore your property. Go on and revolutionize the government;
I will stand by you.” The bad man will say or might say this. I am not sure
but we have got a man now who comes very near saying it. Let us have done
with this pardoning power. We have had enough of this. Pardoning! How
inexpressibly base have been the uses made by this power—this beneficent
power. It has been that with which a treacherous President has trafficked.
He has made it the means of securing adherents to himself instead of
securing allegiance to the government.

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Marshall Cunningham @marshallcunningham.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

Once a week this happens to me. This is the dumbest feature/oversight. Why would anyone need/want to reply to themselves?!?!?! Also, heaven forbid I need to reference and earlier email in the exchange with that student. It's lost to the netherworld forever.

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brooke bikes mke @brookebikesmke.bsky.social · 17/05/2025

I just love my bike so much.

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Alex Kirshner @alexkirshner.com · 16/05/2025

this is a letter to the editor from a high school track runner who came in second to a trans girl in a race. her state house rep in maine started talking about it. so she wrote this: www.pressherald.com/2025/05/14/r...

Rep. Laurel Libby, R-Auburn, recently used my second-place finish in the 1,600-meter run, and that of my teammate in the 800-meter run, to malign Soren Stark-Chessa, the trans-identified athlete who finished first.

One of the reasons I chose to run cross-country and track is the community: Teammates cheering each other on, athletes from different schools coming together, and the fact that personal improvement is valued as much as, if not more than, the place we finish.

Last Friday, I ran the fastest 1,600-meter race I have ever run in middle school or high school track and earned varsity status by my school’s standards. I am extremely proud of the effort I put into the race and the time that I achieved. The fact that someone else finished in front of me didn’t diminish the happiness I felt after finishing that race. I don’t feel like first place was taken from me. Instead, I feel like a happy day was turned ugly by a bully who is using children to make political points.

We are all just kids trying to make our way through high school. Participating in sports is the highlight of high school for some kids. No one was harmed by Soren’s participation in the girls’ track meet, but we are all harmed by the hateful rhetoric of bullies, like Rep. Libby, who want to take sports away from some kids just because of who they are.

Anelise Feldman
Freshman, Yarmouth High School
Yarmouth

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Josiah Hawthorne @josiahhawthorne.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

So the fact that the Achaeans left us a GIFT, FREE OF CHARGE, of a wooden horse, in a very public and transparent transaction, so bothers the prophet Laocoön and his sons that they insist we don’t bring the horse inside the walls of Troy. Laocoön is an Aegean-class Loser!!! MIGA

Donald J. Trump & @realDonald Trump
So the fact that the Defense Department is getting a GIFT, FREE OF CHARGE, of a 747 aircraft to replace the 40 year old Air Force One, temporarily, in a very public and transparent transaction, so bothers the Crooked Democrats that they insist we pay, TOP DOLLAR, for the plane. Anybody can do that! The Dems are World Class Losers!!! MAGA

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Marshall Cunningham @marshallcunningham.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

Just popped into the comments to find the author. This is lovely!

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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 23/04/2025

The media doesn't want you to see that it's not a jail, it's slavery.

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Tyler McBrien @tylermcbrien.com · 17/04/2025

"I hope this writing will startle you into understanding that a democracy for some — a democracy of convenience — is no democracy at all. I hope it will shake you into acting before it is too late" -Mahmoud Khalil, today in the @washingtonpost.com Link: www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

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ℳatt @matttomic.bsky.social · 15/04/2025

The "Jackie Robinson Day background" section of MLB's official press release about Jackie Robinson just notes that he was a first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers who debuted in 1947. Nothing about the how, the why.

JACKIE ROBINSON DAY BACKGROUND

Robinson played his first Major League game at Ebbets Field on April 15, 1947, as a first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Major League Baseball has celebrated Jackie Robinson’s legacy in an extensive and unified League-wide show of support over the years, including retiring his number throughout the Majors in 1997, dedicating April 15th as Jackie Robinson Day each year since 2004, and requesting that every player and all on-field personnel wear his Number 42 during games scheduled on Jackie Robinson Day since 2009. Major League Baseball aims to educate all fans about Jackie Robinson, his life’s accomplishments and legacy, while communicating his message at all levels of the sport. For more information, please visit MLBTogether.com.

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Marshall Cunningham @marshallcunningham.bsky.social · 08/04/2025

Fair: I have a beard that I’m very proud of and I think this article is pretty good!

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Marshall Cunningham @marshallcunningham.bsky.social · 08/04/2025

Never. That guy is useless. That’s what I always say. Good-for-nothing.

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Marshall Cunningham @marshallcunningham.bsky.social · 08/04/2025

JNES has just published my article about the (potential) use of Hebrew among the Judeans of Yeb/Elephantine. It has a little bit of everything: Contact/sociolinguistics, precative perfects, and lengthy footnotes on škn! Here’s a link to access for free: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

journals.uchicago.edu

A Case for Hebrew at Yeb: The “Vidranga Passage” and Judean Diglossia in Fifth Century Elephantine | Journal of Near Eastern Studies: Vol 84, No 1

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Jeff Sharlet @jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

Third time I’m posting this article today. Because I believe it’s correct and essential for everyone’s wellbeing.

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Jeffrey Vagle @jvagle.me · 25/03/2025

This seems like a good time to remind folks of what Hannah Arendt once wrote:

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Marshall Cunningham @marshallcunningham.bsky.social · 28/02/2025

I am not sure that an article has ever better encapsulated a thing that causes me an almost insurmountable level of frustration. There Are Other People In The World - defector.com/there-are-ot...

defector.com

There Are Other People In The World | Defector

Pay attention to the things around you! Be aware of the space you take up, and the space other people take up, and when those two things might come into conflict!

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Dr Keith 🎃 Wilson @keithwilson.eu · 06/02/2025

How I think I look when teaching/how I actually look

Crazed conspiracy theory map guy (they’re the same picture)

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Esther Brownsmith, PhD @brownsmith.bsky.social · 30/01/2025

It’s all shiny and real now!

Esther holds up a salmon-pink hardcover book titled “Unruly Books: Rethinking Ancient and Academic Imaginations of Religious Texts,” edited by Esther Brownsmith, Liv Ingeborg Lied, and Marianne Bjelland Kartzow.

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Jackie Flynn Mogensen @jackiefmogensen.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

Really thankful to all of the scientists who made themselves available to talk to me about the unprecedented situation at NIH. I've never had so many people reach out to me for a story like this. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

motherjones.com

What the Hell Is Going on at NIH?

Scientists sound the alarm about Trump’s unprecedented “Big Brother” research crackdown.

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Scott Barber @scottbarber.bsky.social · 23/01/2025

What did Gregory of Nyssa do?!??

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Ryan Nanni @celebrityhottub.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

this is the Audubon sketch for A Podcast

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Nick Covington @covingtonedu.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

Oh... www.axios.com/2025/01/13/w...

Octavia E. Butler, the late-pioneering Black science fiction novelist who wrote about a wildfire from climate change starting on February 1, 2025, in her novel "Parable of the Sower," is buried in an Altadena cemetery.

The cemetery caught fire, the LA Times reports.

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Marshall Cunningham @marshallcunningham.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

@pablo.show Today's celebrity fragrance show made me laugh out loud over lunch. What an incredibly dumb and ultimately incredibly insightful premise. Loved it. Keep up the good work.

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Marshall Cunningham @marshallcunningham.bsky.social · 12/01/2025

What about something like representations of “others” holding up the throne in Achaemenid sculpture? Cultural differences among the conquered/ruled are stereotyped in visual representation. This lines up with imperial claims to ordering the universe.

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Marshall Cunningham @marshallcunningham.bsky.social · 08/01/2025

Rode from 63rd to McCormick Place on the path this morning without issue. Only nasty bit was the underpass at 63rd trying to get out to the path.

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Marshall Cunningham @marshallcunningham.bsky.social · 29/12/2024

This is maybe the most Catholic thread that I’ve ever seen on this site.

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Arif Hasan, but NFL🔨⚒️🛠️ @arif.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

Yesterday got me thinking about this amazing thread from David McKenna, who as far as I'm aware does not have an active presence on Bluesky. Highlight tweet of the thread (for me) first, then the full thread archive.ph/GSSce

Tweet from Dave McKenna reads:

Poison a person, go to jail, they call you a felon for life. Poison a city resulting in dozens of deaths and thousands with brain damage, get a teaching fellowship at Harvard, they call you ex-Gov of Michigan Rick Snyder. Same with much corporate poisoning. 13/

Tweet thread from Dave McKenna. Abridged:

Something I've learned is about the social construction of crime. I work in a legal clinic on wage theft, employers have "improperly paid" workers by not paying, paying below min wage, withholding OT, sick time, etc.

Most theft is wage theft. Meaning, the dollar value of stolen wages is greater than the value of all other theft. Yet, wage theft is NOT A CRIME

Bar chart shows: wage theft >$19 billion, Larceny $5.3B, Burglary $4.1B, Auto theft $3.8B, Robbery $0.34B.

If you steal $100 from your employer, you get arrested. If you call the police because your paycheck is $100 light, the police tell you to file a complaint with the AG; AG will settle the case for between $50 and $200.

(Not true, bc AG's only take on big cases with thousands of dollars, but they settle big cases by requiring employer pay what is owed. No jail, no record).

If AG doesn't want to take the case, it will give you a Private Right of Action to sue employer for what you are owed + damages. It can take a 6-18 months to win, and months or years to collect if you win.

We address the predominant form of theft in the US w civil cases, not criminal. We have defined "wage theft" as not a crime. Theft by you, a crime. Theft by your employer, not a crime.

This is what we mean w crime is "socially constructed." Not all social harms are criminalized.

I settled a case for 3 clients. We spent a MONTH negotiating the NDA bc if all his employees sued him and settled like this, he would go BANKRUPT. His business model DEPENDED on wage theft.

These employers go on to hold elected office. 45 famously used wage theft to improve his finances. Some didn't have resources to pursue multi-year litigation + got nothing.

What should we do about it? criminalize employers or decriminalize theft or something else?

Quoted tweet from bstonkittymafia reads: Can you explain this reasoning? Why expanding criminal liability is a bad idea? For whom?

Continued thread from Dave McKenna:

Wage theft shows that we believe restitution is important. Giving the money back is important. Currently, AG keeps track of bad actors and will increase future financial penalties for bad actors.

It also shows when harm is committed, we don't have to lock someone in a cage or label them a felon, both of which destroy years of life even after the sentence is over. We can demand restitution instead of punishment.

It also shows how ridiculous the label "high crime neighborhood" is. And the arbitrary and racist response of police surveillance in HCN. Because we defined it that way.

Consider the social construction of murder:

Poison a person, go to jail, they call you a felon for life. Poison a city resulting in dozens of deaths and thousands with brain damage, get a teaching fellowship at Harvard, they call you ex-Gov of Michigan Rick Snyder. Same with much corporate poisoning.

The people commiting the most harm aren't in jail, don't live in high crime neighborhoods. And "black people commit more crime" is true only bc of how we have defined crimes, and how we then surveil their community in response to find more crimes.

There are so many orgs trying to address harm and create accountability within community + without incarceration. We call ourselves prison abolitionists.

Just a few: @byp100 @survivepunishNY @justicehealing @DeeperThanWater @BlackAndPinkBos @BlmBoston

A few more you might want to follow or support @GKMC18 @ignitekindred @MsKellyMHayes @prisonculture @crlosangeles

If you are feeling like "damn, this thread turned left, why don't we just lock up ALL ppl who commit harm", I'm still learning about how to actually reduce future harms.

Former prosecutor + Prof Paul Butler on abolition: https://news.berkeley.edu/2020/01/17/berkeley-talks-transcript-paul-butler/

Continued thread from Dave McKenna, abridged:

The incomparable Mariame Kaba, an interview on abolition: https://thenextsystem.org/learn/stories/towards-horizon-abolition-conversation-mariame-kaba

Human rights attorney Derricka Purnell & Law for Black Lives' Marbre Stahly-Butts: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/26/opinion/the-police-cant-solve-the-problem-they-are-the-problem.html

We can prevent wage theft by replacing corporate ownership w employee ownership: worker owned cooperatives that share profits & losses

To transform the economy, fund Ujima Project: ujimaboston.com

To fight for a right to housing, fund City Life http://www.clvu.org/

To invest in community where everyone's needs are met, fund Movement for Black Lives: m4bl.org

#fundblackfutures
To transform how we mitigate/respond to violence, fund Violence in Boston Inc. https://www.violenceinboston.org/

QT from @survivepunishNY: In response to the #8CantWait reformist co-optation of decades of abolitionist work, a group of abolitionists has compiled this list. #8ToAbolition

Demands: defund police, demilitarize communities, remove police from schools, free people from prisons & jails, repeal laws criminalizing survival, invest in community self-governance, provide safe housing for everyone, invest in care not cops.

Graphic's text: #8ToAbolition A world without prisons or police, where we can all be safe. We believe in a world where there are zero police murders because there are zero police. Abolition can't wait.

@avitale's book The End of Policing is now available for FREE. https://www.versobooks.com/books/2817-the-end-of-policing

Getting a lot of Qs, so I'd like to clarify I am not saying we should criminalize wage theft!

QT from djmkenna00: I actually don't think wage theft should be criminalized. You report your employer, police violently lock them in a cage for 24-48 hrs until they can get bailed out, then they get sentenced to prison and the business goes bankrupt. You're still not paid.

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